Broadband News

UKOnline launches with router support out of the box

UKOnline is one of the latest ISPs to launch an ADSL service. While the market place is
crowded it would appear they have decided to mark themselves apart by not bothering with USB ADSL modems, but offering an Actiontec Ethernet ADSL Modem/router which is also upgradeable to support
802.11b wireless, as well as being Mac and XBox compatible.

The service is not exceptional price wise at £27.99 (inc VAT) a month, but the Ethernet router is £89.99 (wireless upgrade £45.82), which when combined with the free activation
(worth £58.75) seems better value for money. All held together with a 12 month contract.

The service also includes tools such as Childcheck (parental control software), free spam filter and centralised blocking of certain types of internet traffic to help keep hackers at bay,
suggesting it is aimed at those people who have two or three computers they want to provide Internet access for but are perhaps put off by the lack of support from mass market ISPs in terms of
networking hardware.

UK Online is not the first to offer networking hardware, various other ISPs do, but they are certainly very rare in not even offering a USB option. Since UK Onlines partner is Easynet then it may
be worth keeping an eye on them, since this could mean more exciting broadband packages that use LLU in the future.